Position in chronology
Aleppo 413
Translation — curated editorial
EditorialEditorial entry — translation cited from: CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P100745.
Transliteration
1(disz) udu gu2-na da-du-mu siskur2 ki-su7 gu-la a-sza3 la2-mah kiszib3 lu2-szul-gi-ra mu szu-suen lugal-e ma2-gur8-mah en-lil2-la2 nin-lil2-ra mu-dim2 lu2-szul-gi-ra dub-sar dumu da-da-ga
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (Ur III (ca. 2100-2000 BC)) — Aleppo 413. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format). [year-name] Dated to Šu-Suen y1 — Šu-Suen became king based on canonical year-name formula in the transliteration.
Attribution
Image: National Museum of Syria, Aleppo, Syria (P100745) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from CDLI raw catalogue, no published translation. P-number P100745..
Related tablets
Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
Marks the boundary between proto-writing and writing. We can see signs being used systematically — but not yet phonetically. The leap to recording speech itself comes a few centuries later.
The earliest historical document in human history. Before this, we have lists, accounts, and dedications. Here, for the first time, a ruler tells us what happened — with names, places, and consequences.